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A Different Darwin Day – Leonard Darwin

Yesterday, for Darwin Day, I posted a number of quotes from Charles Darwin’s son, Leonard Darwin. Specifically quotes from his book “What is Eugenics”.
Wiki’s bried top of the page bio reads:
“Major Leonard Darwin (15 January 1850 – 26 March 1943), a son of the English naturalist Charles Darwin, was variously a soldier, politician, economist, eugenicist and mentor of the statistician and evolutionary biologist Ronald Fisher.”

Part of the reason was to test the queuing function on tweetdeck, setting them up to post every other hour. I figured today I’d collect them here:

“If you inspect any good (cattle farm) you will find that the animals are well housed; that they are fed with suitable food in quantities neither too small nor too great; and that they are carefully guarded against infection. Should not we be glad if the same could be said about our slums?”

‎”The misery, pauperism, crime, resulting from over-crowded houses could be lessened by forethought as to the size of the family.”

“THOSE who marry any one with any serious defect of body, mind, or character are apt to bring trouble on both themselves and their children. This is because such failings are not only immediately harmful, but may be passed on to succeeding generations by natural inheritance or by example.”

“THERE are three things which make a person likely to commit a crime. These are, in the first place, a bad home; in the second place, subsequent temptation; and, lastly, bad natural qualities. We are bound to mitigate all these causes to the best of our abilities.”

“If mothers of feeble-minded girls would picture to themselves all the shame and suffering which would be felt if an illegitimate grandchild were to be born in their home, they might begin to look on sterilization in a new hght.”

“It has been said on good authority that the son of a criminal is ten times as likely to commit a crime as is the son of honest parents. (W)e cannot… say that so much is due to bad early environment, so much to meeting the devil in the path of life, and so much to bad inborn predispositions. We may conclude… from such facts as this that if criminals had fewer children there would be less crime…”

“The inferior include in their ranks the stupid, the careless, the inefficient, the intractable, the idle, the habitual drunkard, as well as those too feeble in body or in health to do a good day’s work. The inferior add to public expenditure in the same ways as do the unfit…”

“Every time any one receives his wages, or buys anything whatever… he comes off worse than he would have done if there had been no unfit or inferior… If all men could realize how much better and happier all classes would become if the number of these unfortunates were to be reduced, then eugenics would come into its own.”

“Good jobs are, it is true, often obtained by favouritism. Much good work is ill paid. And men often fail from want of training or opportunity. These are all evils against which we must fight, and they are evils which will diminish with any real advance in civilization.”